Section 9: Bob Zuparko, junior detective
I have no idea how unusual this may be, but I was quite happy (not to mention a little proud) that I was successful in several attempts to track down something or someone after years or decades of “losing” them.
1. In truth, I can take very little credit for the first one – this was really more about the power of the internet than any ability of mine. One day I was minding my own business, when I suddenly became aware of a small fragment of music (like 2 or 3 notes). I can’t remember if I heard it while scrolling through a radio dial, or if it just popped into my head, but I was pretty sure it came from a good song I heard years (or even decades) earlier. However, it was like a faint aroma or feeling, no more corporeal than that. So I went online to try and track it down, but I was operating under certain restrictions: 1). I couldn’t remember the song’s name, 2). I had no idea who sung it, 3). I didn’t know the tune, and 4). I didn’t know the lyrics. Well, the last was not strictly true – after cudgeling my brain, I came up with the two word phrase: “golden fingers”.
And here is where the power of the internet came to my rescue: searching for “golden fingers” didn’t help much, but when I searched for “golden fingers lyrics”: BAM! up came the lament, The cover of the Rolling Stone, by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show … and I had remembered rightly – it is a great song, give it a listen sometime.
2. My next attempt actually preceded the one noted above, and this one I do take great pride in, since it occurred before computers were around. I met Kathleen Taft in 1973 when we both attended Berkeley (Fig. 7.9.1). We kept in touch for a while, when she had moved up Oregon and got married. After that, I got an occasional postcard from her during her travels to Africa and Alaska, but then nothing – she had fallen off my radar screen.
But sometime in 1980 I made an attempt to find her by going to the California Alumni Association office on the Berkeley campus, and asked if they had an address for her. They told me they did, but couldn’t give it to me. I said no problem, but asked if they could forward a letter from me to her. They replied in the affirmative, so I wrote out a letter to her and put it in a stamped envelope with her name on it, and I left it to the CAA to fill in the address and mail it off, which they did. Well, I doubt one could do that nowadays (intermediates like the CAA have to be worried about stalkers and exes with short fuses), but back then was a simpler time. However, I have no idea what actually happened to that letter, but it didn’t matter. Turns out a letter I had sent to her in Africa back in 1978 was forwarded to her then present address in Alaska, which prompted a card from and so we were back in touch. I learned she had met (and then married) a guy named Doug McConnell (which was a bit of a coincidence, as I had met another Doug McConnell through Scottish Country Dancing, but I knew he was in the U.K.).
3. My third success AGAIN involved Kathleen. Yes, I had found her in the Pacific Northwest in 1980, but sometime after 1982 I lost her again (I know, it was very clumsy of me). But now we were in the age of the internet, so I never considered approaching the CAA again, but instead went straight to my computer. However, other than her’s and Doug’s name, the only bits of data I had were 1) they were last known from Washington or Alaska, and 2) they were interested in wilderness issues. There were any number of Kathleen/Kathy Tafts and McConnells populating the United States, but none of them were my missing friend – it seemed that she had absolutely NO internet presence. But finally after a lot of searching I found a single mention of someone by her name listed on the organizing committee of a wildlife or environmental meeting up in Alaska. This was not very satisfactory … until I saw that a Doug McConnell was part of this same event, and he was noted to be a broadcast journalist. Immediately, I thought of the Doug McConnell who had produced a series called Bay Area Backroads, shown on KRON TV, right here in San Francisco. A little more searching on Doug’s name confirmed he had spent time in Washington and Alaska before coming to the Bay Area. So my next step was easy: I contacted the show and announced I was looking for my old college friend and asked if they could they provide me with her contact information. And presto – I’m once again in contact with a dear friend I first met 50 years ago.
4. As noted in Chapter 3, Section 8, I met Paula Hollister at LGHS. After she graduated and moved out of Los Gatos, we remained in contact up until the late 1980’s or early 90’s, having married a guy named Peter Britt1 and had a couple of kids. I also knew she was into the fine arts, liked pets and (ugh!) vegetables, as well as her sibling’s first name.
In 2019 (about 30 years since I had last seen her), I became curious about her and tried to look her up online. She had only slightly more of a web presence than Kathleen, but not much: just one or two references of her in northern California. So I kept at it and continued my web searching, when ultimately I found someone of that name who was a major philanthropist of the fine arts in another state. But I figured her family never had that type of money, so that had to be somebody else and I kept digging. But eventually I came across the obituary of a one William Smith2 which not only referenced Paula (Hollister) Britt, but also the fine arts, pets, vegetables, and the name of the wife’s sibling, all of which convinced me that this was the one I was looking for. A little more research supplied an address, and thus I was able to reconnect with her after a span of 30 years (although we are no longer in contact).
1 Also a pseudonym.
2 Yet ANOTHER pseudonym.